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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25496623">Reminiscence</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelvetDove/pseuds/VelvetDove'>VelvetDove</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dead by Daylight (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dark, Gen, Light Angst, Memories, Regret, Short</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:54:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>622</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25496623</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelvetDove/pseuds/VelvetDove</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Susie plucks the memories from her mind, she starts with the pleasant ones first.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Julie Kostenko &amp; Susie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Reminiscence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My brain keeps screaming at me to write, but I have no idea what to write, so I scribbled this little thing out to practice. It's not eloquent or fluid or edited, but I just needed to write and this is what came of it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Susie plucks the memories from her mind, she starts with the pleasant ones first.</p>
<p>It's just the two of them, at the beginning. Susie thinks she liked it best that way - before Joey, before Frank. Before <em> this. </em></p>
<p>They're just images in her head, of course. She'll never get to experience anything like those moments again, but they're clear and glossy like snapshots from a Polaroid, and she can take comfort in knowing that, at one point, she was living. The memories have a rose-tint - that is to say, the <em> good </em> ones do - colored with that blissful ignorance reminiscence is so willing to offer.</p>
<p>They're thirteen. She can feel the warm summer air on her cheeks, if she thinks hard enough. Julie is perched on the edge of her porch with an iced tea in her hand, Susie behind her, winding Julie's soft blonde hair into a braid to match Susie's. Their skin is darkened from time spent outside, desperate for the few months of sunlight Ormond is willing to offer. She can hear her own tinkling laughter at one of Julie's passing remarks, before it's wiped away by a breeze that carries the hints of winter's chill.</p>
<p>They're fourteen. They met Joey shortly after that day on the porch, but it'd taken a while for them all to warm up to each other. He was brash, louder, but he added a certain charm and excitement to their group. Susie was always quiet and Julie was calmer, back then. Rain patters against the windows, the trails that sluice across the windows blurring the fall colors just outside the library. The snow would come soon. Julie says she wishes she were somewhere else, how much she hates it here. Joey agrees. Susie feels a passing dread and brushes it off as pre-exam anxiety.</p>
<p>They're sixteen. The rosy gloss of Susie's memories start to vanish here, something darker creeping in at the edges. Julie's started a scrapbook, filling it with clippings and photos of murderers. Susie doesn't say she finds it morbid. She smiles and nods politely - there's no harm in a hobby, after all. A lot of people take interest in serial killers. What many don't do, however, is talk about them as if they're admirable. People to look up to.</p>
<p>They're seventeen. Julie's met someone great. Susie doesn't think so. She doesn't like the way Julie acts around him, the kind of things they plan together, but Susie thinks she's probably overreacting - Frank and Julie would think that. Teenagers get rowdy sometimes, anyway. Susie guesses it's okay to participate, as long as no one gets too hurt.</p>
<p>They're seventeen and they've killed him. Susie didn't want to, but Frank made her finish the job. His body's in the trunk of Joey's car and it's too quiet and too dark and the flurry of snow makes it hard to see where they're going but it doesn't matter. None of it matters because they've already done it. Susie reaches across the seat, entwines her shaking fingers with Julie's. Neither of them smile.</p>
<p>They're <em>here</em> now, and she hates Frank for it. She hates his self righteous tangents, his gratuitous monologues. She tries to hate Julie for it, too, but Susie remembers a simpler time, when it was just her and Julie. When Frank didn't exist. When it was summer on the porch in Ormond, their lives spanned in front of them in millions of directions. When there was no threat of it all being taken away.</p>
<p>Susie finds Julie standing at the edge of this new Ormond, gazing across the frost-swept landscape, into the fog beyond. </p>
<p>She twines her fingers with Julie’s. They don’t shake this time, but there’s still no reason to smile.</p>
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